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06 Jun 20:04

How to Grill the Perfect Hot Dog

by Stephen Johnson

It’s summertime, people, and that means heat rash, going to work even though it’s a really nice day, and grilling hot dogs! The humble frankfurter may have been invented in Germany, but it has become a distinctly American food—according to the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council, in 2020, 944.3 million pounds of hot…

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06 Jun 20:03

MetalFX is Apple's take on upscaling tech for games

by Kris Holt

Apple is getting more serious about gaming on Mac and iPad with the help of its M2 chips. At WWDC, the company showed off upscaling tech along the lines of NVIDIA's Deep Learning Super Sampling and AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution.

Metal 3 will include support for MetalFX Upscaling. Your Mac will render smaller frames that are less compute-intensive. MetalFX will upscale the visuals and apply temporal anti-aliasing. The idea is to deliver better and more efficient gaming performance with higher frame rates than might be possible from pure hardware-driven rendering.

Apple MetalFX
Apple

Resident Evil Village will utilize the tech when that game comes to Mac. Capcom says the game will run at 1080p "effortlessly" on MacBook Air and at 4K on Mac Studio. No Man's Sky will also use MetalFX upscaling when it arrives on Mac and iPad later this year. Grid Legends is on the way to Mac as well.

Apple also announced a fast resource loading API that's designed to minimize loading time, akin to Microsoft's DirectStorage tech. It works by routing directing game data more directly from storage to the CPU. Apple says this will enable games to "easily access high-quality textures and geometry needed to create expansive worlds for realistic and immersive gameplay."

While Apple historically hasn't done a great job with supporting games (there's no native iOS app support for Stadia and Xbox Cloud Gaming for one thing), the introduction of MetalFX upscaling is a positive move. Getting big-name studios and publishers such as Capcom, EA and Hello Games on board could help turn the tide for Mac as a viable option for gamers. However, broader support for Steam games would be a bigger step in the right direction.

Follow all of the news from WWDC right here!

06 Jun 20:02

Apple Announces macOS 13 Ventura, the Next Major Software Update for the Mac

by msmash
As expected, Apple has used the stage at its WWDC 2022 keynote to reveal the features and changes coming to macOS in the next major software update for the platform, macOS 13 Ventura. From a report: Ventura's headlining feature is a new multitasking interface called Stage Manager. It's being billed as a way to fight window clutter on a busy desktop -- enter Stage Manager mode, and one of your windows floats to the center of the screen, pushing your other windows into a compressed navigation column on the left of the screen. Click a different app window on the left, and it will fly to the center of the screen, knocking the app you were using before into the navigation column. Spotlight also gets some handy quality-of-life updates, adding the ability to Quick Look search results directly from the Spotlight window, and the ability to run Shortcuts from within Spotlight. Safari picks up the ability to share groups of tabs with other users, letting all users add and remove tabs. The browser is also adding a FIDO-compliant security technology called PassKeys, which aim to replace passwords with cryptographically generated keys that sync between devices using iCloud Keychain. Sites that support PassKeys can be opened using TouchID or FaceID. Apple's cross-device Continuity features were also updated. FaceTime calls can be handed off seamlessly between different Macs and iDevices, while Continuity Camera allows you to use an iPhone as a webcam (your iPhone's LED can even be used as a makeshift ring light). Continuity Camera supports Center Stage and Portrait Mode effects, too, though presumably they will require newer iPhones with hardware that supports those features.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

06 Jun 18:05

The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power Has Five Seasons Already Mapped Out

by Jeremy Mathai

If you ask me, the idea of filmmakers planning out the overall arc of a story is given a little too much weight these days. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is commonly held up as a poster child of a studio knowing exactly what each movie was building to ... but that's actually not accurate at all, given the fact that many involved with the franchise have admitted to improvising on the fly when needed. As much as the recent "Star Wars" films have been derided because of Lucasfilm not knowing what direction to take the overall sequel trilogy, I'll die on the hill that they didn't need some master plan -- they just needed to hire the right directors who understood how to jump on board a moving train and evolve the story in compelling ways (like Rian Johnson).

Television is obviously a much different beast than film, but I'd argue that much of the same applies here, as well. "Breaking Bad" and "Better Call Saul" co-creators Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould are famous for writing themselves into corners, without having any clear plan to follow, and forcing themselves to find the most creative and narratively satisfying solutions.

That brings us to the newest batch of quotes from JD Payne and Patrick McKay, the showrunner duo behind "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power" series. Prime Video has released a few fresh looks at the upcoming epic today, but the latest information (along with a new image) from Empire might be the most fascinating yet, as we now know to officially expect five seasons of this new series.

'We Even Know What Our Final Shot Of The Last Episode Is Going To Be'

Set in the Second Age of Middle-earth, long before the events seen in Peter Jackson's "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit" trilogies, "The Rings of Power" is apparently taking the scenic route towards telling its particular version of the story that's loosely adapted from author J.R.R. Tolkien's writings found in the appendices of "The Return of the King." That roadmap apparently includes stipulations for five seasons and 50 hours of story, total. As JD Payne told Empire:

"The rights that Amazon bought were for a 50-hour show. They knew from the beginning that was the size of the canvas -- this was a big story with a clear beginning, middle, and end. There are things in the first season that don't pay off until Season 5."

"We even know what our final shot of the last episode is going to be," Payne remarks. Now, personally I tend to prefer an approach that involves throwing in every potentially great idea into the mix right from the outset, rather than "saving" anything for later installments down the line. In its prime, "Lost" might be one of the best examples of a series where the creators had absolutely no idea what their final destination would be ... but still made the journey to that endpoint as thrilling and entertaining as it could possibly be.

And for those about to cite the show's disappointing final season, allow me to point to "Game of Thrones" as a counterexample of a series where the creators knew exactly what the ending had in store, yet fumbled the conclusion anyway.

'Tolkien Put Some Stars In The Sky And Let Us Make Out The Constellations'

Of course, the biggest concern of Tolkien purists revolves around whether the story will stay faithful to the author's original writings. As much as the details of this new story told in "The Rings of Power" will be brand-new additions to Tolkien lore, the showrunners are insistent that viewers will have nothing to worry about. They took their cues directly from someone who once admitted that his story was meant to be carried on by others long after he was gone. According to Patrick McKay:

"It was like Tolkien put some stars in the sky and let us make out the constellations. In his letters [particularly in one to his publisher], Tolkien talked about wanting to leave behind a mythology that 'left scope for other minds and hands, wielding the tools of paint, music and drama.' We're doing what Tolkien wanted. As long as we felt like every invention of ours was true to his essence, we knew we were on the right track."

Obviously, much of this will be in the eye of the beholder once the series finally debuts. But to hear McKay tell it, they found comfort in knowing that they were merely caretakers. "The pressure would drive us insane if we didn't feel like there was a story here that didn't come from us. It comes from a bigger place. It came from Tolkien and we're just the stewards of it. We trust those ideas so deeply, because they're not ours. We're custodians, at best."

"The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power" will debut on Prime Video on September 2, 2022.

Read this next: The 15 Best Anthology TV Series Ranked

The post The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Has Five Seasons Already Mapped Out appeared first on /Film.

06 Jun 17:59

The ins and outs of the mafia

by Devin Nealy

I got to The Sopranos party a little late. I probably could've gotten into the series when it was airing, but I think some of the themes would have eluded my 12-year-old brain. Also, The Sopranos works best when subverting the mafia cliches we've come to love. — Read the rest

06 Jun 17:54

YouTuber posits that it takes over $100,000 to max out gear in Diablo Immortal

by Chris Carter

Diablo Immortal max

How to sully hard developer work: part one

So we knew that Diablo Immortal would have microtransactions. The team has been kind of mum on them overall outside of general platitudes that they wouldn't impact the game that much: but several posts and YouTube channels are actually breaking this down the new monetization model scientifically, and things aren't looking good for Diablo Immortal max stat requirements.

That material includes a Reddit post by daymeeuhn that showcases how far the stat and gem rabbit hole goes, a full explanation of pay-to-win from Gregg2G, and a rundown from the Bellular News channel. Let's break this down. A lot of the onus on the cracks in this system falls on legendary gems.

Legendary gems can drastically increase your stats, to the point where they can outweigh multiple slots of "traditional gear." You can get these, quasi-indirectly, through microtransactions: via buying "legendary or rare crests [boosters]" to go on better Elder Rift runs (randomized dungeon runs from Diablo 3). Legendary gems are so rare that at the current moment, you essentially need to purchase crests to see them drop reliably. While crests are technically given out as free rewards (at a limit of only a few a day for rare, and only a few a month for legendary), the chance of earning a legendary gem is very low (evidently 10%) compared to the drastically increased drop rate from premium legendary crests. It's also important to note that legendary gems have rarity levels, and free players cannot earn legendary gems higher than a "2-star rating." This isn't even taking into account the "Awakening" and "Resonance" mechanics, which further upgrade gear via premium dawning echo items.

Gregg2G posits that one player, the "Whale," who is at the top of the PVP charts, potentially paid $20,000 to get to where he is this early (with excessive amounts of legendary gems), and it could take around $110,000 to fully max out in the current environment. Yes, Diablo Immortal has PVP, which is obviously directly impacted by this system, and is unable to skirt the "well pay-to-win doesn't matter because the game is all PVE" excuse that many developers unsuccessfully try to use. It's suggested that true free players could take years to work up to the level of some of the Diablo Immortal max highest ranked paid players right now. Confusing right? Well that's by design.

This has sort of been addressed by a member of the development team on Twitter. Originally, the idea, communicated through a Blizzard post, was that "there is no way to acquire or rank up gear using money." The catch is that "gear" in these strict terms, means the "12 item slots." You can, however, essentially buy loot boxes (sorry, crest bonuses to do dungeons to get loot boxes) to acquire better gear; and the legendary gem system is not considered "gear" by the developer, even though it's an item that directly is attached to your character that increases your stats.

Expect our Diablo Immortal review later today. Suffice to say, this factors in!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jwn-aVc13VY

The post YouTuber posits that it takes over $100,000 to max out gear in Diablo Immortal appeared first on Destructoid.

06 Jun 17:27

Engineer Who Fled Charges of Stealing Chip Tech in US Now Thrives in China

by msmash
ASML has pressed IP theft allegations against two firms created by 'flagbearer' for China's semiconductor industry. From a report: Few companies are better positioned to benefit from the crippling shortage of computer chips than ASML, a Dutch manufacturer whose equipment plays an integral role in making the world's most advanced semiconductors. But four lines tucked halfway into an otherwise upbeat, 281-page annual report from February hinted at a potentially incendiary problem. ASML accused a Beijing-based firm, regarded by Chinese officials as one of the country's most promising tech ventures, of potentially stealing its trade secrets. Behind the brief disclosure is an extraordinary multiyear tale of intellectual property theft and a broader threat facing the $556 billion semiconductor industry. In the report, ASML said the Chinese company, Dongfang Jingyuan Electron, is related to a defunct Silicon Valley firm, Xtal, which ASML sued for intellectual property theft. A 2018 trial in California, which received scant attention at the time, provided more detail. Dongfang and Xtal were essentially the same, created a month apart in 2014 by a former ASML engineer named Zongchang Yu, ASML's attorney told the court. The two companies worked in tandem toward the same goal: obtaining ASML's technology and transferring it to China, which is seeking to foster its own semiconductor industry, often at the expense of Western companies, the attorney argued. That technology was secured in sometimes audacious fashion: one engineer was accused of stealing all 2 million lines of source code for critical ASML software and then sharing part of it with Xtal and Dongfang employees in the US and China, according to transcripts of the proceedings. "It's not an accident. It's not anything else," Patrick Ryan, ASML's lead attorney, told the court. "But it is a plot to get technology for the Chinese government."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

06 Jun 17:26

Fearing Lawsuits, Factories Rush To Replace Humans With Robots in South Korea

by msmash
An anonymous reader shares a report: Kim Yong-rae is the CEO of Speefox, South Korea's biggest manufacturer of capacitors, and he thinks robots are key to the company's survival. On his factory floor, free-standing machines squeal as they spit out gleaming sheets of aluminum that roll into coils. The air is filled with the rhythmic thud of stamping and the buzzing of machinery moving continuously, on the ground and overhead. Capacitors are essential to almost every electronic device, and these will end up in thousands of smartphones, cameras, and home appliances. "Throughout our history, we've always had to find ways to stay ahead," Kim told Rest of World. "Automation is the next step in that process." Speefox's factory is 75% automated, representing South Korea's continued push away from human labor. Part of that drive is labor costs: South Korea's minimum wage has climbed, rising 5% just this year. But the most recent impetus is legal liability for worker death or injury. In January, a law came into effect called the Serious Disasters Punishment Act, which says, effectively, that if workers die or sustain serious injuries on the job, and courts determine that the company neglected safety standards, the CEO or high-ranking managers could be fined or go to prison. Experts and local media say that the law has shaken the heavy industry and construction sectors. Along with pushing the companies to invest to make workplaces safer, they point out, it's triggered a ramp-up of automation in order to require fewer workers -- or, ideally, none at all.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

06 Jun 17:26

AI Shopping Startup's AI Was Actually Just Low Cost Workers in the Philippines

by msmash
Some startups are bold and original. And some, like Nate, had more modest goals: automatically filling out shoppers' contact and payment information on retailers' websites. In exchange for sparing them a minute or two of data entry on their phones, Nate charged shoppers $1 per transaction. But it struggled to turn even that vision into reality. The Information: While the company said it was using artificial intelligence to populate customer information during the checkout process, it had actually hired workers in the Philippines to manually enter the data on retailers' sites for a significant portion of the transactions Nate facilitated in 2021, according to two people with direct knowledge of the company's practices. That meant customers' orders were sometimes placed hours after they clicked the buy button through the Nate app. Nate didn't disclose its decidedly low-tech methods to at least some of the investors from whom the startup tried to raise money, according to a person with direct knowledge of fundraising discussions.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

06 Jun 17:26

Google Disables RCS Ads in India Following Rampant Spam by Businesses

by msmash
Google has halted businesses from using RCS for promotion in India, the company's biggest market by users, following reports of rampant spam by some firms in a setback for the standard that the company is hoping to help become the future of SMS messaging. From a report: Rich Communication Services, or RCS, is the collective effort of a number of industry players to supercharge the traditional SMS with modern features such as richer texts and end-to-end encryption. Google, Samsung and a number of other firms including telecom operators have rolled out support for RCS to hundreds of millions of users worldwide in recent years. Google said last month that RCS messaging in the Messages app for Android had amassed over 500 million monthly active users. The problem, however, is that scores of businesses in India including top banks and other lending firms have been abusing the feature to send unsolicited promotional materials to any individual's phone number they can find in the country.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

06 Jun 12:56

More Old GLSL Code Is Gutted From Mesa 22.2

It's not only the Linux kernel that's been seeing some spring cleaning but Mesa developers have also been quite busy on working to remove some old, poorly maintained code from their open-source 3D driver components...
06 Jun 10:20

Barry's Penultimate Season-Three Chapter Goes To The Ocean

by Josh Spiegel

Tonight marks the penultimate episode of the third season of the excellent HBO black comedy "Barry," and last week's installment made it genuinely impossible to envision how this show gets to its already-renewed fourth season. You may recall that Barry Berkman (Bill Hader) leaped out of the frying pan — in the form of a trio of dirt bikers trying to kill him as part of a twisted vengeance-army plot hatched by Barry's old frenemy Fuches (Stephen Root) — only to unknowingly arrive in the fire — in the form of being poisoned in the home of the widow of his old military buddy (who he killed in season one). But with the father of Detective Janice Moss looking to meet Barry himself, we know the question isn't if Barry will survive the poisoning. It's how.

Compared to last week's pyrotechnics, "candy asses" starts in a more low-key fashion, in a full church congregation, where only one man — Ryan Madison's dad George Krempf (Michael Bofshever), the man grieving his actor son who Barry killed in the series' pilot episode — is unable to sit down when a hymn ends. Hmm. But then we cut back to Barry foaming at the mouth after eating a beignet he himself had purchased, but one that was poisoned by Sharon (Karen David). Though Sharon seems a little less at ease now, she's able to drape a cloth over Barry's face as he seemingly stops breathing. But he can't be dead. Not yet. Right? 

After the silent opening title card, we see Gene Cousineau (Henry Winkler) beginning to deliver his first streaming master-class video, as his agent Tom (Fred Melamed) teased in a previous episode. As was teased in a previous episode, too, Gene is being directed by his old flame Annie (Laura San Giacomo), who seems a bit less impressed than he is at the laughs gained by a very chintzy-looking taxi prop during Gene's monologue, in which he jumps from one poor actorly impersonation to another, from Pacino in "Serpico" to Hoffman in "Midnight Cowboy". "Hey, I'm actin' here!" Oof, Gene. 

The next morning, Barry inexplicably wakes up, coughing, somehow not killed by the poisoned beignet. Understandably confused, Barry wakes up, exits Sharon's house, still in pain and able to shout a profanity or two (though don't get used to Hader speaking — he's mostly silent in this episode) only to find that the waves of the ocean are lapping through the residential area where he's in. And soon enough, Barry is on an endless beach, with a group of folks not too far from him staring into said ocean. So ... uh ... definitely not a dream.

Getting A Little Entitled

Sally Reed (Sarah Goldberg), meanwhile, is finding some hard transitions in her first day in the writers' room for the BanShe streaming show "The New Medusas". The head writer seems initially unwilling to hear Sally's calmly pointed feedback about how one of the heroines' actions — "sucking and then eating" off some guy's genitals — doesn't actually track with the rest of the plotline. But even though the feedback does get through, Sally is unable to take the win, especially when she notices another, more rowdy writers' room that's being led by none other than her old acting-school colleague and ex-assistant Natalie (D'Arcy Carden). It's not enough that Natalie is now where Sally was at the start of the season, heading up her own show and belittling an assistant of her own. Natalie's show, where she plays a single mom with a teenage daughter trying to figure things out in New York City, seems so close to "Joplin" that Sally is overcome by a fit of rage much like that of her ex Barry, inspiring her to emergency-stop an elevator and shout in fury at Natalie for being "an entitled f**king c**t!" It's unnerving how quickly Sally is able to turn on her anger, even if it is indeed shocking to find Natalie moving up so quickly in the world.

NoHo Hank (Anthony Carrigan), meanwhile, has headed down South to Bolivia to find his lover Cristobal (Michael Irby), simply by shouting Cristobal's name in the middle of a crowded marketplace. He approaches a random street vendor, only to realize that this street vendor works for the Sifuentes family and has shot him via poison dart. "Yep, that's what I thought you were doing, but did not want to be rude," NoHo Hank says after having waited for ... a while for the vendor to prepare his weapon. Later, he wakes up in a dank cell by himself, realizing that two of his fellow Chechens are in an adjacent cell, being tortured by four Bolivians and Elena. Hank asks what he can do, and is told very little by the others, who are trying to escape but bleedingly badly: "Be ready."

Barry is still on the beach, and mildly baffled when he sees a sedan pull up. Its driver is none other than George Krempf, looking at him implacably. It's here that Bill Hader (as director) cuts to real life, where we realize that Barry did actually wake up from his poisoned beignet, and did escape Sharon's house, but is suffering some kind of late-acting paralysis, barely sitting up against a dumpster in a nearby alley ... and still staring down George. Uh oh.

I'm Acting Here

Gene Cousineau, meanwhile, has some very good advice for his masterclass students: "Embrace your embarrassment!" It turns out that the person who may need that advice most of all is Annie, who whispers desperately to her script supervisor that she hasn't directed in decades and has no idea what she's doing. Her script supervisor tries to boost her spirits, at least to make Annie comfortable enough to act like she knows what she's doing. But considering that we just saw Annie teaching an art class, it tracks that she needs a bit of time to get back up to speed. After the filming is over, Gene and Annie are congratulated by an executive, the latter being invited to hear about some other upcoming projects.

Meanwhile, we see Fuches in his role as Kenneth Goulet going to visit Jim Moss (Robert Wisdom), the father of the dead Janice Moss. Jim invites Fuches to take a drive, where he calmly but carefully tries to ply more information about how this "Goulet" knows what exactly happened to his daughter. It's here that he tells Fuches a very disturbing piece of information, both for himself and for us: when Jim served in Vietnam and was captured as a POW, he convinced his own interrogator to kill himself. "...Was he depressed?" Fuches asks, reasonably a bit concerned about being in a car with a guy that tough. But Fuches should have focused more on the destination with Jim, as he only realizes too late where Jim was driving: to the police station, where Fuches is taken in for questioning. "I'm no kind of genius or anything," Fuches says right before seeing the cops, and ... uh, yeah, we know. Albert Nguyen (James Hiroyuki Liao) is baffled about why Fuches would approach Jim at all, but the LAPD see him and think he's the infamous Raven. Albert wants to interrogate Fuches with the cameras off, but Jim is taken aback when he hears offhand that multiple people — including Gene — have said Barry is responsible for Janice's death.

Jim doesn't waste much time, visiting Gene's wrap party and horrifying the acting teacher with his presence. He calmly and carefully — it's a solid tactic — explains what we've already seen happen: that Fuches visited him to tell him about who killed Janice, that he drove Fuches to the cops, and that Barry supposedly killed Janice. "Barry's a good kid," Gene says, not willing to anger his ex-student again after they seemingly made nice a few episodes ago. We know Gene is lying, of course, but Jim knows without the history of the whole series: all he has to do is look at the top of Gene's forehead, spot the flop sweat, and innately understand that Barry likely is the man to find next.

Barry seems like he's at death's door, for sure, stuffed into the back seat of the car driven by George. Once he pulls the car in, he pulls out a revolver and looks at it pensively. Again: uh oh.

Damage Control

Later that night, Sally is equally shocked to realize that her tirade against Natalie wasn't for naught — Natalie was wisely recording her via her cell phone and has posted it to a TMZ-style website, thus tarnishing Sally's already-shaky reputation. Sally's lost her job on "The New Medusas," and her agent Lindsay (Jessy Hodges) begs her not to even record a rushed apology. But when Lindsay arrives at Sally's apartment, she learns the actress didn't heed her advice, recording and sending a video to the same TMZ-style website that "isn't an apology -- this is damage control!" "My show is me, Lindsay, and she stole my f**king show!" Sally shouts, before essentially torpedoing her own career not only with an "I'm sorry if you're offended" apology but a tirade at Lindsay that leads the latter to drop her as a client. I should note that the way Hader stages this scene, with Sally backing away from Lindsay as she shouts, into a darkened room that swallows her up whole, is very effective.

Sally's career may be dead, but let's head back to Barry and George Krempf, the latter of whom is reminiscing about the imagined sound of his son's feet as a child, and equally imagined conversations with his son. "My wife thinks I'm losing my mind," he says wistfully. He explains that his love for Ryan even as a child was such that he initially found the will to cause violence against anyone who would harm the boy. "What would I do?" he asks out loud. But there is one common thread throughout all three seasons of "Barry", which is that our title character just keeps lucking into staying alive. Here, it's because George Krempf, with the means to kill Barry, can't do it. He can't bear the thought. "I want to see my son again," he all but gasps out (and boy, Bofshever -- a king of the It's That Guy! actors -- is excellent in this scene).

We cut back to Barry's dream on the beach, as he reaches the group of oceanic onlookers, only to realize that they are all the people he's killed over the years, from Chechen mobster Goran (Glenn Fleshler) to his old buddy Chris (Chris Marquette), the latter of whom is understandably confused and seemingly a bit annoyed when Barry waves at him as if to say, "Hey, bro!" Then they all -- also including Esther from last season and Cristobal's father-in-law Fernando -- look to the sky where they hear a cacophony of voices ... as Barry is roused back to life, wheeled into the hospital, as he sees that George Krempf killed himself right outside the hospital. Goddamn.

Uh-Oh

"candy asses" ends back at the LAPD, as Albert finally gets that off-camera interrogation with Fuches, asking him to once again explain what he's doing there. But Albert is really there to explain to Fuches who he is to Barry Berkman, so he can get a better sense of who Fuches is to Barry. When Albert asks him point-blank if Barry is "caught up in all this", Fuches talks about how sad it is that Chris was killed, taken away from his wife and son. "You ever wonder why Chris, who never saw combat, would even have PTSD?" Fuches asks pointedly, stating that Chris was at the wrong place at the wrong time instead. Essentially, he says Barry killed Chris without having to say those words. And with that, Albert hurriedly, angrily leaves the LAPD, but not before grabbing his revolver and loading it.

So, again, I will say: Uh oh.

That aside, "candy asses" is another very breathless, suspenseful episode in a season that has basically been at the same level of unbearable tension, at least in terms of the Barry/Fuches side of things. I do wonder, with just next week's season finale staring us in the face, what to make of the whole season, in that the balance between darkness (via the criminal work that Barry partakes in) and the relative lightness of industry satire leans so far on the darker side. And that's not a bad creative choice, but it makes the industry satire stand out a bit more. Take Gene, for instance, whose most key scene relative to Barry comes when Jim visits him briefly, a scene that could arguably have taken place at any location. (We don't see Gene again in this episode after Jim questions him.) Or Sally, whose behavior here is clearly intended to remind us of how she was verbally abused by Barry earlier in the season and is now flipping it around on Natalie. It's sad and well-acted and searing in its own way, but I do feel like the season has found less and less need for the industry satire as anything other than a balm from the bleakness of the title character's descent into Hell.

Because if I ask myself, right now, what I expect or hope or want from next week's finale, it's all about Barry and Fuches. Will Barry get a fuller, more complete sense of the vengeance army Fuches enacted? Has Fuches inadvertently gotten his most able soldier in said army in connecting some dots for Albert? And how the hell is Barry going to get out of it to survive to another season? (To that end, can this show possibly last more than four seasons?) "Barry" continues to be unpredictable and tense as ever, so while I have all these questions, I am genuinely glad that I have no idea where this show is going next.

OTHER THOUGHTS

-- Henry Winkler's portion of "candy asses" is mostly very light-hearted, especially his terrible impressions. "Stella! Get down here! I want to eat!" I think Tennessee Williams is turning over in his grave now.

-- One of the leads on "The New Medusas" is called "Medusabby". Solid detail.

-- D'Arcy Carden throws herself into the brief, seen-through-the-window description of her show when Sally spies on Natalie. When's D'Arcy Carden getting her star vehicle?

-- I really like Anthony Carrigan as NoHo Hank, and the Hank/Cristobal relationship was a fascinating subplot in the first half of the season, but I fear it's going to be given a bit shorter shrift than needed in the back half of the season. (All things considered, I'm a bit surprised NoHo Hank got less screen time here than even Gene or Sally, considering he's in mortal danger.)

-- "You want a phone book to hit him with? A sock full of coins?" LA's finest, folks!

-- "Robust? Lantern-jawed?" Fred Melamed really excels at rattling off adjectives that don't fit Gene Cousineau.

Read this next: Batman Movies Ranked From Worst To Best

The post Barry's Penultimate Season-Three Chapter Goes to the Ocean appeared first on /Film.

05 Jun 18:59

All I want at WWDC is for Apple to kill iTunes for Windows

by Richard Devine

As Apple fans and the wider tech community gear up for WWDC, there are common areas of anticipation. Indeed, WWDC is fairly predictable in some sense, with new versions of iOS, iPad OS, tvOS, and whateverelseOS Apple has for the year being debuted. It’s also a developer conference, so those building on and for Apple, get their eyes on the latest and greatest. But there’s a more low-key announcement I want to see from Apple this year: iTunes being terminated. Put it out to pasture, it’s done. Nobody would miss it.

This idea first resonated in my mind upon reading a piece by a former colleague, Daryl Baxter over at TechRadar. Windows is the last bastion of iTunes and as Baxter’s headline reads, it’s almost like a punishment. I have never conversed with a single person who has ever enjoyed using iTunes either on Windows or Mac. I’ve been using it for about 19 years and it’s never been fun. So it’s time to go.

iTunes never got better

iTunes for Windows

The ‘modern’ iTunes for Windows has hardly moved along from the earliest incarnations. At first, it was a necessary evil. If you wanted to use an iPod and you had a Windows PC, you had to use iTunes. It was entirely required to transfer your digital music to your digital music player.

Even in the early days of the iPhone, iTunes had a place. It was clunky to use but for transferring to and from your shiny new Apple phone, it was something you lived with.

But those days are far behind us. Apple has just discontinued the iPod and who connects their iPhone or iPad to a computer to transfer files anymore? The truth is that even Apple doesn’t see a reason to use iTunes anymore, after all, it was pulled from the Mac a few years ago. But Windows users are left to suffer, with a product that sees updates but never actually improves.

Its sole purpose nowadays is as a front-end to Apple Music, your previously purchased music and video library, and the iTunes Store. Everything you do on your iPhone and iPad is wireless. If iTunes for Windows provided access to Apple TV+, there might be an argument to keep it. But it doesn’t, so there isn’t. And again, Apple discontinued it on its own desktop platform three years ago. If there were reason to keep it, that wouldn’t have happened, would it?

On the Mac, you have Music, Podcasts and Apple TV+. All of these apps are better than the clunky mess that is iTunes for Windows. If Apple has enough paying customers for its music service on Windows that it cares enough to keep iTunes alive, then give us the better apps.

Third-party devs doing what Apple can’t, or won’t

Cider for Apple Music on Windows 11

Apple Music is available as a web app, and it’s decent enough. But it doesn’t have offline music. There is also a far superior third-party app called Cider. And right now this is the only way anyone should use Apple Music on Windows, albeit, again, without offline music. If you need to be offline, you have to use iTunes.

Cider, though, is magnificent, even in its early days. It’s a free, open-source application with a UI reminiscent of the Apple Music web app. But it goes much further, with a whole raft of settings and customizations. I’ve got a Dracula theme running on mine. It’s not just visuals, either, there are features to tweak audio, apply lyrics, link to Discord even some experimental plugins. It even has podcasts.

There’s still plenty to be done and some features, such as sync, are labeled as a work in progress. But it’s hosted on Github and has a beta or stable channel you can follow.

Cider isn’t just available on Windows, but it does at least serve as a worthwhile alternative to having iTunes in your life. Made better by the fact that it’s a really good app. Check it out either on Github, the Microsoft Store, or install it through the Windows Package Manager.

Only one thing that needs to happen

Apple Music app on Mac

Nobody is surprised Apple prioritizes its own platforms. But nobody is going to be so fed up with iTunes that they’d run out and buy a Mac. Services like music, podcasts, and TV need to be platform agnostic. Windows just has the numbers. Would the iPod have taken off like it did if it had remained a Mac-only product? Definitely not.

Apple has been pretty generous with supporting other platforms with its media services. Apple Music is on Android and the major smart speakers and Apple TV is available on games consoles and competing smart TV platforms. The precedence for the guardians of iTunes to be a bit more generous to its customers who don’t drown themselves entirely in Apple hardware is there. By all accounts, the Mac apps are pretty nice to use. Sure would be nice to have them on Windows.

So please, Apple, finally do the decent thing. The iPod is gone, and iTunes needs to follow.

The post All I want at WWDC is for Apple to kill iTunes for Windows appeared first on XDA.

05 Jun 18:53

Billy The Kid 2022 S01 1080p AMZN WEBRip DDP5 1 x264-MIXED

05 Jun 10:29

Neverwinter Nights: The Blades of Netheril - Doom of Icewind Dale Update

by ValH

This recent Patreon post from Luke Scull lists a number of people from the NWN community who have now joined The Blades of Netheril project in some capacity. It also pushes the release date of Doom of Icewind Dale, the project's first chapter, back to September.

Check it out:

A very warm hello to all my Patrons, and everyone else for that matter! Last month was exceptionally busy, and I have some great news to share. The first big piece of news is that Daniel Morris, aka Irongron, Lead Area Designer on Tyrants of the Moonsea and head honcho at Arelith, will be joining the project as Lead Area Designer. This will free me up to finish the remaining writing before I turn my full attentions to scripting.

In case you're unfamiliar with Daniel's work, Arelith is by far the largest Persistent World active for NWNEE. In fact, it accounts for something like 30% of the current active player base. He's created a world that pushes the boundaries of what is possible in the NWN engine and possesses a talent for building beautiful areas that is quite astonishing. It's fantastic to know that Doom of Icewind Dale will look every bit as good as Tyrants of the Moonsea, and perhaps even better!

If you'd like to check out Arelith, please follow the above link. You can also support the Arelith team on Patron here.

The second piece of news is that Bill Harper, Lead Artist on NWNEE and Technical Artist/General Toolset Wizard on Tyrants of the Moonsea, will be helping out where he can, time permitting. This will be a huge boost for the project, as no one knows Neverwinter Night as well as Bill. Bill has undertaken the immense talk of bringing the entirety of NWNEE's artwork up to HD standards. You can check out his work on the Vault and support him in his endeavours here.

The third piece of news is that a talented musician named Raphael has volunteered to create ambient music for Doom of Icewind Dale. This will hopefully mean that with the four incredible cinematic and combat tracks produced by Will Musser (http://www.willmusser.com/), the module will feature a complete OST.

But Luke, you may ask, when is Doom of Icewind Dale going to be released? You said it would be June!

Well, yes, I did. It was my goal, and honestly, we're not far off. Assuming the writing and areas are finished in July, and scripting takes 4-6 weeks of (pretty intensive) labour, I'd like to get the beta sent out in late August, with the public release landing in September. This is a little later than I'd planned, but honestly, it will be worth it. I'm committed to what is, in effect, seven Premium Modules forming an epic campaign over the next few years. A little extra time to make sure the first chapter really blows everyone's socks makes sense to me. I've been on the NWN scene for 20 years and I've since become a professional game designer and internationally published author and I still love doing this, so have no fear I'll see it through the completion. It's my happy place.

I'd like to take this opportunity to again thank everyone who has contributed toward this project. I know sometimes it may feel like you're not seeing an immediate reward for your generosity, especially when I'm not able to post here as frequently as I'd like - but rest assured every penny you donate goes towards making awesome new NWN content and that you're directly responsible for making this project happen. In particular, I'd like to give a shout-out to a few anonymous donators who this month gave the project a large, unexpected boost. Thank you all!
05 Jun 03:48

'The Cynic's Guide to Desktop Linux'

by EditorDavid
The Register has unveiled their "cynic's guide to desktop Linux," which they ultimately concede is a snarky yet affectionate list of "the least bad distros." For those who are "sick of Windows but can't afford a Mac," the article begins by addressing people who complain there's too many Linux distros to choose from. "We thought we'd simplify things for you by listing how and in which ways the different options suck." - The year of Linux on the desktop came and went, and nobody noticed — maybe because it doesn't say "Linux" on it. ChromeOS only runs on ChromeBooks and ChromeBoxes, but they outsold Macs for a while before the pandemic. "Flex" is the version for ordinary PCs... ChromeOS Flex works great, because it only does one thing: browse the web. You can't install apps, not even Android ones: only official kit does that. You can run Debian containers: if you know what that means, go run Debian. If you don't know what that means, trust us, you don't want to. - Ubuntu is an ancient African word that means I can't configure Debian.... - Mint is an Ubuntu remix with knobs on. It was an also-ran for years, but when Ubuntu went all Mac-like it saw its chance and grabbed it — along with the number one spot in the charts. It dispenses with some of the questionable bits of recent Ubuntu, such as GNOME and Snaps, but replaces them with dodgy bits of its own, such as a confusing choice of not one, not two, but three Windows-like desktops, and overly cautious approaches to updates and upgrades. - Debian is the daddy of free distros, and the one that invented the idea of a packaging tool that automatically installs dependencies. It's easier than it used to be, but mired in politics. It's sort of like Ubuntu, but more out of date, harder to install, and with fewer drivers. If that sounds just your sort of thing, go for it. There's 10 snarky entries in all, zinging Fedora, openSUSE, Arch Linux, and Pop!_OS — as well as the various spinoffs of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. (The article calls Rocky Linux and AlmaLinux "RHEL with the serial numbers filed off.") And there's also one final catch-call entry for "Tiny obscure distros. All of them." Thanks to Slashdot reader AleRunner for sharing the link...

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

04 Jun 23:48

10 Lightweight Linux Distributions to Give Your Old PC New Life

by Christian Cawley

Old PCs can't cope with the demands of modern operating systems and software. While upgrading hardware such as memory can help, the better solution is a lightweight operating system.

04 Jun 23:48

Man releases his inner Huck Finn and rafts down the Columbia River. Fails to account for dams, current, and an inability to swim [Dumbass]

04 Jun 23:47

The Worst Fabrics to Wear in Hot Weather

by Elizabeth Yuko

We’re in the the middle of a broiling summer, with record-breaking temperatures recorded all over the world. Now more than ever, sweating is completely normal—and crucial for regulating our body temperature— but arriving at work with your shirt already soaked from your morning commute isn’t a good look for anyone. But…

Read more...

04 Jun 23:46

Windows 10 GPU Hardware Scheduling: Is It Worth Turning On?

by Matthew Wallaker

If you want to improve your computer performance, you can try enabling Windows 10's GPU hardware scheduling. This feature was included by Microsoft in the May 2020 update, and since then, many gamers have given it a try to see if it helps them or not. However, your computer’s GPU might not support it.If you want to know more about GPU hardware scheduling, keep reading as we discuss how it works, the system requirements, and how you can turn it on.

04 Jun 23:32

Ask Slashdot: Why Haven't They Increased Size Limits for Email Attachments?

by EditorDavid
"Email system are quite capable of sending and receiving large attachments," writes long-term Slashdot reader Stonefish "However, size limits are generally tiny." And then he tells a story... In the late 1990s I worked for a research organisation maintaining their mail system, and had recently introduced mail size constraints. Within the first day it had blocked a number of emails — including a 700MB attachment. Being a master of all thing Internet I called up the sender to tell him firstly how such a large email would cause problems for the receiver, and secondly how there were far more efficient ways of sending things. Given that he was on the same campus he invited me down to his lab to discuss this further. (After showing me round his lab, which was pretty impressive apart from the large "Biohazard" and "Radioactive" materials labels on the doors.) He told me that the facility he was sending the attachments to was a supercomputing hub with similar "Fat" pipes to the Internet so the large emails weren't a problem. I then spoke about the "efficiency" of the mail protocol and he said that he'd show me what efficient was and did a quick, "drag, drop and send" of another 700MB file of his latest research results. He was right, I was wrong, it was efficient from his perspective and all his previous emails were easily available demonstrating when and where they were sent. As a result of this we changed our architecture and bought bulk cheap storage for email as it was a cheap, searchable and business focused approach to communications. However 20 years plus later, even though networks are tens of thousands of times faster and storage is tens of thousands of times cheaper — email size limits remain about the same. Email remains cheap, efficient and ubiquitous — but we expect people to upload a file to a site and generate a link and embed in a manner that means we lose control of our data or it disappears in 12 months. What's missing from this analysis? (Wikipedia's page on email attachments notes the intermediate "mail transfer agents" that store and forward email "and may therefore also impose size limits.") But even that page admits some attachment limits are arbitrary. I always assumed it was an anti-piracy measure. Anyone know the real answer? Share your own thoughts in the comments. Why haven't they increased size limits for email attachments?

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

04 Jun 23:10

'The Orville: New Horizons' Premieres on Hulu

by EditorDavid
This week saw the premiere of The Orville: New Horizons on Hulu — a third season, now streaming after two seasons on broadcast TV from 2017 to 2019. Seth MacFarlane (the show's creator/star) tells the Hollywood Reporter how that will change the Orville: "The biggest difference for me being on Hulu is that I don't have to tell a story that's exactly 43 minutes long every week because I have to make room for a certain number of commercials. "That's not how storytelling works — different stories are different lengths, and you start to fall into this cadence where you're shaving scenes down, you're cutting things that don't need to be cut. The best part about being on Hulu is that those moments where you want to linger on an actor's face because it's meaningful and it helps to tell the story? You can do that. You have the time; you can be indulgent in that way." MacFarlane tells TV Guide the series is now "a dramatic sci-fi show with comedic elements that come about from the character's personalities." And MacFarlane tells ABC News, "I think people can expect a lot more than they think they can." It's not just Covid that's the reason that it's taken so long. It's a pretty massive uptick in scope. We're only doing 10 episodes, as opposed to 12, they're longer episodes. The scope of these episodes is much more film-like. I think people are a little unprepared for what's to come. Disney and Hulu really gave us the resources to do this right, and we've put it all on the screen. Long-time Slashdot reader Marxist Hacker 42 wrote a journal entry (with some spoilers) about the new season's premiere episode, noting "a very powerful morality tale" that led to a fifth act with "some prime technobabble worthy of the show's Star Trek heritage." (While long-time Slashdot reader antdude calls it "better than the newer Star Trek like Picard," long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo calls it "an enjoyable watch, and would have been the highlight of the week if it wasn't for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds overshadowing it." GameRant argues that The Orville in general "is actually truer to the Star Trek spirit than any of the franchise's contemporary entries." And the series will also stay true to its Yaphit, reports Yahoo Entertainment: Behind the scenes, The Orville team bid farewell to one longtime crew member during the production of Season 3. Comedian Norm Macdonald has voiced fan favorite character, Lt. Yaphit, since the show's freshman year and completed recording his dialogue prior to his death from leukemia last September. MacFarlane says that he wasn't aware of Macdonald's illness during their three-season collaboration. "As I finish the episodes, the emotion that I feel more than anything is gratitude that he left us with all this great stuff," he remarks. "I was very moved by the fact that he had continued to record for us and continued to play this part. As sad as it is, I'm happy there's more Norm yet to come through The Orville." Asked whether Macdonald's passing means that Yaphit's tenure aboard The Orville will also conclude at the end of Season 3, MacFarlane suggests that fans may not have seen the last of the gelatinous lieutenant. "We do have a plan," he teases. "We would not do Yaphit without Norm, but there is a plan for how we are going to handle it if we are lucky enough to do Season 4." (As of now, a fourth season is up in the air as the cast's contracts have expired.)

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

04 Jun 18:15

Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior's Stunts Were More Dangerous Than You Think

by Adam Wescott

I never loved cars, but I did take them for granted. At college in Ohio, cars represented the only means other than an irregular shuttle to go anywhere or do anything outside of school. They are essential to the lives of millions of people in the United States and around the world. But they are also dangerous. According to the World Health Organization, roughly 1.3 million people worldwide die in car accidents each year. In the United States alone, a report by the National Safety Council found that cars killed 42,060 people in 2020.

"Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior" ends with a car chase. Our hero Max drives a Mack truck to transport a settlement's full stock of gasoline to safety. He is pursued by a flotilla of cars and motorcycles, scavenged from the dump and fitted with weapons. One of them is the charismatic leader Humungus, who bears a needlessly ornate Smith & Wesson. Another is Wez, a mad man with a mohawk whose loved one was killed by Max's ally the Feral Kid. These eccentric heroes and villains blast through the Australian outback at high speeds. You could not simulate the film's climactic chase with the computer effects available at the time. You needed real people to jump from one car to another, real cars to smash. The most "mad" thing about the "The Road Warrior" is not the fetish gear or the violence. It is that when the Mack truck crashes in the climax, it is being steered by a person.

The Make-Believe World Of The Movies

Real people were hurt during the making of "The Road Warrior." An authorized video on the film's production captures the injury of Guy Norris. Filling in for Vernon Wells as "Wez," Norris drove his motorcycle directly into a wrecked car and sent himself flying, as required by the script. Ideally, Norris was to control his descent, landing on safety material in such a way as to avoid serious injury. Unfortunately, Norris flipped over several times in the air and lost control. He broke his leg upon hitting the ground. The scene was kept in the film, but Norris himself was removed from set for the rest of the production. To the cast and crew, Norris's injury was an unfortunate accident, a reminder that every stunt carries a risk no matter how carefully the team prepares in advance. To the narrator of the documentary, it is proof that "nothing is more exciting or dangerous than the make-believe world of the movies."

It would be tempting, then, to assume that the crew of "The Road Warrior" was a team of daredevils who risked their necks each and every day for the fun of it, and that the final product only became more exciting because people could have died on set at any time. Fair enough. There is a sense of danger to real bodies in peril that can only be found today in Tom Cruise films or "Mad Max: Fury Road." But "The Road Warrior" was not a reckless production. In fact, "The Road Warrior" could only have been as good as it was because the cast and crew took safety seriously.

The Doctor On Set

George Miller, the director of the "Mad Max" films, was a doctor before he made movies. According to Kyle Buchanan's "Blood, Sweat & Chrome," he grew up in Queensland operating on victims of car crashes. He would carry the memory of that violence with him to the set of the first "Mad Max" movie. The film's production was a disaster; at the very beginning of the shoot, two members of the crew broke their legs in a motorcycle accident on the way to work. Miller nearly quit his job as director on the spot. "We haven't even started," he said, "and people are gonna die." Thankfully, he changed his mind. Miller came to realize over the course of production that the challenges that intimidated him were just part of filmmaking. "It wasn't until I spoke to Phil Noyce and Peter Weir, and they said, 'Oh, it's always tough ...' it really changed my attitude." Miller made movies following "Mad Max" with the knowledge that filmmaking could kill as surely as a car.

Crashing the Mack truck in "The Road Warrior" meant planning for every eventuality to protect the life of the driver. According to the website Mad Max Movies, the glass of the windscreen was replaced with steel to protect the driver from broken glass and outside projectiles. The back of the cabin was reinforced by a steel framework to prevent the trailer mounting from penetrating the cabin, should the mounting break from the force of impact. A safety crew followed in a dune buggy, with an ambulance and helicopter at hand to rush the driver to safety if needed. Every one of those layers of safety, even the ones that remained untested, were necessary to avoid injury or death.

Crashing The Truck

The driver of the Mack truck in the film was not a stunt driver by trade. According to Luke Buckmaster's book "Miller and Max," Dennis Williams was a truck driver who met members of the "Road Warrior" crew at a car dealership. When the team told him what they planned for the climax of the film, Williams knew that there was no way Max's actor Mel Gibson could successfully crash a complex vehicle like the Mack. They needed somebody with experience driving trucks to do the job. The one member of the team with said experience, Gerry Gauslaa, was busy doing stunts. In the end, Williams himself was hired to crash the truck. Williams was understandably terrified; after all, his job wasn't to crash trucks, but to avoid crashing trucks at all costs. If he botched the stunt and left the truck insufficiently damaged, the film would be in serious trouble.

Williams managed to pull off the stunt successfully. For this we can credit his bravery and personal expertise. We may also credit members of the crew who offered him advice, like the previously mentioned Guy Norris. But most important of all was the culture of "The Road Warrior" production. The crew had more money to work with and were also more experienced than when the first "Mad Max" was produced. They shot scenes quickly and efficiently, but took great care in doing so. Whether a crewmember was a professional like Guy Norris or a relative amateur like Dennis Williams, every measure possible was taken to ensure that they would emerge from the production in one piece. Later George Miller projects like "Fury Road" were much harder on the crew, but were just as concerned with ensuring their physical safety.

An Industry Of Bodies

What this means, of course, is that the folks who brought earlier "Mad Max" films to life would return to the later ones. Fair and responsible treatment breeds loyalty as surely as genius. Dennis Williams was hired once again as a stunt driver for "Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome." Guy Norris served as supervising stunt coordinator on the set of "Fury Road," and personally crashed the War Rig in the finale. It's tough to imagine "Mad Max," or practical effects in general, having a future in Hollywood without the input of experienced craftspeople like Williams or Norris. 

Digital effects today are farmed out to countries without unions willing to work cheap, long hours. In recent projects like "Rust," members of the crew lost their lives due to lax safety precautions. Perhaps it is true that "nothing is more exciting or dangerous than the make-believe world of the movies." But movies are made by people, and those people are certainly not make-believe. We need a film industry that treats bodies with care; we need more doctors.

Read this next: The Best Movies Streaming Right Now: Malignant, A Hero, And More

The post Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior's Stunts Were More Dangerous Than You Think appeared first on /Film.

04 Jun 10:33

10 Reasons to Buy a Wii in 2022

by Jake Peterson

Nintendo in 2022 means one thing and one thing only, and that’s the Switch. The handheld/home console hybrid is the name in gaming right now, outselling not only the next-gen consoles from Microsoft and Sony, but Nintendo’s own Wii over the course of its five-year lifespan.

Read more...

04 Jun 10:28

[Steam](game) Space Pilgrim Episode II: Epsilon Indi

by /u/Dealericious
04 Jun 01:41

Try These Breakfast Ideas That Aren't All Carbs

by Lindsey Ellefson

When it comes to breakfast, the prevailing theme is carbs, carbs, carbs: a lot of cereals, toast, granola bars, and bagels. Of course, carbs aren’t bad, they’re just one element of a complete diet (and happen to be an easy option in the morning). With a little effort, though, you can add proteins, fats, fiber, fruits,…

Read more...

04 Jun 01:35

The New South Park Movie Is A Giant Middle Finger To Streaming Platforms Everywhere

by BJ Colangelo

The latest Paramount+ exclusive "South Park" movie just dropped on the streamer, with the aptly given title, "The Streaming Wars." The long-running animated series from Trey Parker and Matt Stone is currently breaking the sole rule of Ghostbustin' by crossing the streams, as the current 25 seasons of "South Park" live on HBO Max until 2025, when they'll finally join the movie specials and pivot over to Paramount+. Until then, "South Park" is double dipping between two major streaming services, and decided to laugh in the faces of the entire streaming industry with their new meta movie while cashing their simultaneous checks.

I was six-years-old when "South Park" debuted on Comedy Central, and when my school's PTA sent a warning letter to parents to make sure they knew this "new cartoon" was not actually for children, it only motivated my family even more to see what the fuss was about. I've been watching the show for as long as I have been able to process media, and while "South Park" frequently misses the mark, when they hit, they blow it out of the park. There's a lot to criticize about "South Park," but I'm a firm believer that the show serves like a moral Rorschach test, where the way you interpret or respond to the material says a lot more about you than it does the creators' intent. "The Streaming Wars" is no different.

A Plan For Everyone

Trey Parker and Matt Stone are about as subtle as a sledgehammer in a glass menagerie, so the streaming wars in this special are literal. Denver is in a drought thanks to the effects of ManBearPig (the show's symbolic terror for climate change) and the water commissioner cuts a deal with Randy Marsh and Steve Black that as long as their weed farms use less water than what is allotted by the government, they can sell their unused water to the city. If they're smart, they could even sell it on a monthly basis through different plans. Randy and Steve are now in direct competition with one another, trying to convince buyers to sign up for their specific "streaming service," all the while rich jerks try to find a way to weasel their way into the market.

Stan and Tolkien use this battle as an opportunity to make money for themselves, as in order to prove the water from South Park is making it to Denver, the boys make popsicle stick boats to serve as physical proof that the stream is flowing every day. Suddenly, all of the streaming services want to pay them for their popsicle stick boats. After all, you have to put something on the stream to know the service is good. The boys have no loyalty to the streaming services regardless of whose parent owns what -- they are loyal to the almighty dollar. They're the ones making what the people want, so if any of the streaming services has an issue with it, they'll just lose out on the popsicle stick boats they've proven bring in new subscribers. Again. Subtle as a sledgehammer.

'They Don't Give A F*** About How Good Anything Is'

Due to the high demand for boats, Stan and Tolkien get all of the usual crew in on their scheme, which means a lot of boat building and popsicle eating. Butters, always the voice of reason, goes on a sugar-filled rant about their workmanship after Kyle criticizes that Cartman's boat looks like crap and stresses the importance of a good product:

"They don't give a f***, Kyle! They're going to take everything that they can get. Everyone knows at the end of the day there's only going to be like three streaming services! So they, like, everyone just wants to have their s*** on their stream and get bought out, you know? And they don't give a f*** about how good anything is. And the people who make all the deals, they don't give a f*** 'cause they're all going to get fired anyway, you know? And everyone working at this streaming service is now working over at that streaming service. No one gives a s*** about what f****** goes on in it."

Butters seldom swears on the show, so you know the message is a serious one if "Oh, hamburgers" gets replaced by "THEY DON'T GIVE A F***, KYLE!" This rant is the most on-the-nose punchline in the whole special, because it's Butters likely serving as a megaphone for Parker and Stone's personal feelings about the way a demand for quantity has impacted the quality of shows, including their own. Again, there's plenty to critique about "South Park," but it's punk as f*** to see a show continually bite the hand that feeds in the name of quality satire.

This Isn't The End

The special has a side plot that results in Cartman getting breast implants after his mom calls his bluff (this deserves its own article), giving Liane Cartman the most character development she's had over the course of the show's 20-plus year run, and Tolkien receives a devastating phone call following his father's showdown with ManBearPig. There's no real way to predict where the story is going to go next, and I mean that literally. Chances are, similarly to the way the first two Paramount+ "South Park" movies were connected, the next movie will be a continuation of the story. But I also wouldn't put it past Parker and Stone to put the story's conclusion in one of their standard run episodes, forcing viewers to subscribe to both Paramount+ and HBO Max to get the full picture. Regardless of their plan, this isn't the end of the streaming wars.

At least, not until ManBearPig takes us all out.

Read this next: The 13 Best Comedy Shows On Amazon Prime Right Now

The post The New South Park Movie is a Giant Middle Finger to Streaming Platforms Everywhere appeared first on /Film.

04 Jun 01:34

Engineer Sues Amazon For Not Covering Work-From-Home Internet, Electricity Bills

by BeauHD
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: Amazon's attempt to dismiss a lawsuit, brought by one of its senior software engineers, asking it to reimburse workers for internet and electricity costs racked up while working from home in the pandemic, has been rejected by a California judge. David George Williams sued his employer for refusing to foot his monthly home office expenses, claiming Amazon is violating California's labor laws. The state's Labor Code section 2802 states: "An employer shall indemnify his or her employee for all necessary expenditures or losses incurred by the employee in direct consequence of the discharge of his or her duties, or of his or her obedience to the directions of the employer." Williams reckons Amazon should not only be paying for its techies' home internet and electricity, but also for any other expenses related to their ad-hoc home office space during the pandemic. Williams sued the cloud giant on behalf of himself and over 4,000 workers employed in California across 12 locations, arguing these costs will range from $50 to $100 per month during the time they were told to stay away from corporate campuses as the coronavirus spread. [...] Amazon's lawyers, however, believe the broadband and utility bills, and similar expenses, aren't the company's problem since it was following shelter-at-home orders, which require employees to stay away from the office. But Vince Chhabaria, a US federal district judge in northern California, slapped down Amazon's attempt to kill off the lawsuit, and said the local government's orders don't necessarily absolve the company from liability. "What matters is whether Williams incurred those expenses 'in direct consequence of the discharge of his or her duties, or of his or her obedience to the directions of the employer'," Judge Chhabaria ruled [PDF] this week. "According to the complaint, Amazon expected Williams to continue to work from home after the stay-at-home orders were imposed. That is sufficient to plausibly allege liability, even if Amazon itself was not the but-for cause of the shift to remote work. Williams also plausibly alleges that his expenditures were necessary to do his job." Chhabaria did grant Amazon's request to dismiss the engineer's claims that it violated California's laws alleging "unfair business practices," but gave Williams's legal team 14 days to file an amended complaint.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

04 Jun 01:32

An Ode To The Fascinating Acting Career Of David Cronenberg

by Erin Brady

Ah, David Cronenberg. When you think of gross body horror or bleak ultraviolence, his name probably comes to mind. The Canadian director has an extensive history of making audiences uncomfortable, grossed out, or even aroused with his movies. "Crimes of the Future," his first movie in eight years, is no exception to this reputation, and what a reputation he carries!

However, Cronenberg is not as one-note as his reputation or the overused Twitter memes about how horny his movies make him out to be. He's delved into other mediums, such as novels and comic books, but perhaps his most intriguing side career has been his acting. Cronenberg has appeared in several movies and television programs, usually in cameos but sometimes in fully-fledged roles, and his choices are just as interesting as his movies. To honor the release of "Crimes of the Future" and all things Cronenberg, let's toast to the strange but wonderful acting resume of the man The Independent crowned "The Baron of Blood."

Director Cameos And Other Notable Cameo Appearances

This thought might be hard to describe, but directors making cameos in their own movies just hit differently. Cronenberg's cameos are no exception; although he usually kept his appearances in the earlier years of his career, they are still highly memorable to anyone who spots them. He cameoed as one of the infected in 1975's "Shivers," eventually doubling for James Woods in helmet scenes during "Videodrome." He also played doctors in two other movies: an imaginary gynecologist in "The Fly" and an obstetrician in "Dead Ringers."

He doesn't only cameo in his movies, however. He has made cameos in two John Landis movies, which is arguably two movies too many, but we digress. He portrayed a supervisor in 1985's "Into The Night" and appeared as a postman in 1996's "The Stupids." Other non-Landis movies he had cameo roles in include 1994's "Trial by Jury," 1995's "To Die For," 2010's "Barney's Version," and 2019's "Disappearance at Clifton Hill."

Nightbreed

Cameos are one thing, but a fully-fledged acting role is something else entirely. The first main role that Cronenberg ever had was the 1990 film "Nightbreed," the second feature film directed by author Clive Barker. Like his directorial debut "Hellraiser," this movie was an adaptation of a Barker novella, 1988's "Cabal." Although this movie was a box office flop, it has built up a passionate and deserved cult following due to its overt LGBTQ+ themes.

Cronenberg plays Dr. Decker, a psychotherapist by day and a serial killer by night. He discovers the existence of the Nightbreed, the titular group of monsters that band together in a rejection of societal norms, after he finds that he cannot kill his newly-transformed patient Aaron Boone (Craig Sheffer). That doesn't stop him from trying, though, as he is able to convince the local police to take up a hysteric witch hunt against Boone, claiming that he has been behind the killings Decker caused.

Jason X

Cronenberg's involvement in "Jason X" is legendary, and it is likely that you clicked on this article so you see it get mentioned. Well, good news! It's mentioned. Given how iconic his appearance is for genre movie buffs, there is not much to really discuss other than how sick his brief appearance as the generically evil scientist Dr. Wimmer was.

What is worth discussing, however, is the bizarre way that his appearance even came about. In an interview with The AV Club, "Jason X" screenwriter Todd Farmer revealed that it was because the team had brought on Cronenberg mainstay Jim Issac for their special effects. Issac was able to bring on the rest of his and Cronenberg's effects team for the movie only because the director wanted a cameo role in it. He apparently also wanted to rewrite all of his lines before filming. Farmer elaborated on this in the interview:

"Jimmy wanted us to use Cronenberg's effects team, which was Jimmy's effects team. And so he'd gone to David out of respect and said, 'Do you mind if I use the guys on this?' And Cronenberg said, 'I don't mind at all, but you have to cast me.' What kind of confidence does it take for Cronenberg to say, 'Yeah, I want to be in the tenth installment of the Friday the 13th franchise.'"

Alias Grace

This Margaret Atwood adaptation mixes the real-life case of Grace Marks with historical fiction. Given how not much information about the 1843 murders of Thomas Kinnear and Nancy Montgomery was preserved, Atwood and the adaptation written by Sarah Polley had to draw a few conclusions based on what was already known. Despite this hiccup, "Alias Grace" drew high praise from viewers and critics, particularly due to how its strong cast portrayed the subject material.

Among those in the cast was, you guessed it, Cronenberg. He appeared in four episodes of the six-part miniseries, wearing an incredible facial hair piece and playing a Reverend. He is among the many who want to see Marks acquitted for the murders she was originally accused of assisting in. Marks had a very passionate group of believers who rallied for her acquittal for over a decade after she was convicted, claiming that there was not enough evidence to support that she intended to kill Kinnear and Montgomery along with stableman James McDermott.

Falling

If there is any Cronenberg mainstay who can be considered one of his best friends in real life, it has to be Viggo Mortensen. Their frequent collaborations have resulted in great movies and more than one instance of red carpet kissing, so it makes sense that the director would accept a role in Mortensen's directorial debut. I mean, seriously. There are so many photos of them either leaning in for a kiss or just straight up smooching. Google it if you don't believe me.

Anyways, where we were? "Falling," which premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, centers around a gay man (Mortensen) who takes in his bigoted but ailing father when he begins showing signs of dementia. Cronenberg might not play the father, but that character is played by Lance Henriksen, which is arguably just as cool. Instead, Cronenberg has a more lowkey role that doesn't involve bickering over homophobia — he has a cameo as a proctologist.

Slasher: Flesh & Blood

It is a known fact that one of the best types of mysteries is the whodunit. Think "Murder on the Orient Express" or "Clue" — a group of people being hunted one by one by an unknown assailant, with no one trusting the other over fears that they are orchestrating the entire thing. "Slasher: Flesh & Blood," the fourth season of the Canadian horror show "Slasher," takes this to an especially bloody level. Think of a cross between "Succession," "Knives Out," and "You're Next," and you've got a decent idea of what we're dealing with.

The season centers around the wealthy Galloway family, who have all gathered together to compete for the patriarch's inheritance. The only problem lies in a vicious masked killer stalking the originally secluded island, stoking paranoia among the family. With a plot like that, it shouldn't be surprising that Cronenberg appears as Spencer, the ailing but ruthless Galloway patriarch who wants to suss out the appropriate heir to the family's name and fortune.

Star Trek: Discovery

Finally, we have what is arguably the most mainstream piece of media that Cronenberg has ever had a role in, which also makes it that much stranger. The third and fourth seasons of "Star Trek: Discovery" featured Cronenberg in a mysterious recurring role. That is, unless they move production out of Toronto – Cronenberg told Star Trek Explorer that executive producer Alex Kurtzman discovered that some of the show's casting agents also knew the director, prompting him to send out an offer.

Cronenberg plays Kovich, an official of the Human Federation that serves a significant role in elaborating on the show's version of the Mirror Universe. He is the official that first attempts to interrogate a Mirror version of Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh), who is not deceased but rather the 23rd century's powerful Terran Emperor. Shortly after Mirror Georgiou returned to the 23rd century, Kovich helped in the reopening of the long-closed Starfleet Academy.

No, you're not imagining things; Cronenberg and Yeoh have shared multiple scenes together. Now he needs to cast her in a movie, please!

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The post An Ode to The Fascinating Acting Career of David Cronenberg appeared first on /Film.

04 Jun 01:32

Becoming An Actor Wasn't Something Ray Liotta Set Out To Do

by Devin Meenan

Life is a series of unexpected journeys. Often the path we walk isn't the one we thought we'd be on just a few years prior. Someone who probably would've agreed with my dime store philosophizing is the recently late, always great Ray Liotta. You probably already know Liotta was the star of "Goodfellas" — what else is there to say there? His 21st century run as a character actor was just as enjoyable. I'll go on record as a huge fan of his turn as scummy divorce lawyer Jay Marotta in "Marriage Story." Yet despite appearing in so many great films (and being great in them), Liotta became an actor almost by accident.

An Unexpected Drama Major

During a 2016 interview with NPR, Ray Liotta discussed his experience playing Frank Sinatra in the 1998 HBO film "The Rat Pack." This was naturally a part that required singing. When asked if Liotta had prior singing experience, he revealed how his earliest acting stint was in musicals at his alma mater, the University of Miami. However, he also explained that he didn't go to college intent on earning a theater degree.

According to Liotta, his father's advice about higher education had been, "Go wherever you want. Take whatever you want. He just really believed in getting out and being exposed to different things." But Liotta had no idea what he wanted to take. When he had to register for classes, he spotted a line of students registering for drama. With the sword hanging over his head of having to take math or history classes, Liotta opted for theater arts.

Since he'd joined the department on a whim, Liotta initially wasn't an enthusiastic student. He only auditioned for the school play because a fellow drama major berated him for his lack of interest. He continued to NPR: "So I went, and I auditioned for the play. And it was for 'Cabaret.' So then you had to sing and dance. I said, 'how am I going to sing and dance? I'm a jock from New Jersey.'"

With some help from his classmate, Liotta crafted a routine based on "Magic To Do" from the Broadway show "Pippin," and the band Freddie and the Dreamers. "There was a dance called 'the Freddie' ... So I just did the refrain [of 'Magic To Do'], and I did 'the Freddie.' And I got into it. And the first year, all I did were musicals."

Liotta's Mentor

Even after crafting his song-and-dance routine, Ray Liotta still saw drama as just a placeholder until he could figure out what he truly wanted to study. What changed his attitude was his teacher Robert "Buckets" Lowery. The "Buckets" nickname came from Lowery's past playing basketball. Liotta, as a "jock from New Jersey," found it easier to connect with "Buckets" than he did with many of his classmates. As he told NPR:

"[Drama students] wouldn't be the people that I would normally hang out with. And I didn't care what they thought 'cause here I am thinking, 'I'm just going to be here for one year. It doesn't matter.' So for some reason, I just really committed and listened to what Buckets said. And thank God he was an acting teacher who was — it was kind of the Stanislavski, you know, the Russian director and acting teacher. I just listened to what he said and kind of understood and just learned. And if it wasn't for Buckets, I probably would've left. But I came back the next year. And I ended up going the whole four years. But during those four years, I graduated to doing Riff in 'West Side Story' and just different musicals."

Even without having seen that "West Side Story," I can totally see Liotta having the right swagger and punk edge for Riff; it's those qualities that made him so good as Henry Hill. Based on Liotta's recounting, we have not just the man himself and Martin Scorsese to thank for that performance, but Buckets Lowery too.

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The post Becoming an Actor Wasn't Something Ray Liotta Set Out To Do appeared first on /Film.